TSA Enters Fondling Business

The bad news is that if you don't want to be irradiated, or have your privacy invaded, by the TSA's new full-body scanners, soon you can get groped by a TSA "officer". The good news is, there aren't any additional fees or taxes associated with this! At least for now.

http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/tsa-experimenting-with-enhanced-patdowns.html?id=5396474&source=dealalert_test_b&value=2010-08-25+00:00:00&u=3E91EFB00D

I wonder whether the TSA will publish some guidance about how to tip your TSA officer for exceptional service. Slide the singles into his/her badge holder? The belt? In your belt or waistband (if they're any good at all, they'll find them!). And what happens if you opt for this perk in the middle of a raging erection? Will they wave you through the line, or would that provoke the Defenders Of Our Skies to take you into a back room and beat it out of you? Inquiring minds want to know!

Cabin Noise

Considering (1) how inconsiderate some people can be when using their mobile phones in public and (2) that assaulting another airline passenger during these days of the Bush-Cheney regime could get you shipped to Guantanamo, this bill seems like a great idea to me. I even like the name! But it's probably only a matter of time before phones on U.S. flights are a reality; they're already allowed on planes in other parts of the world, after all.

Strange Trips

Soon after our trip to Tanzania earlier in the year, Jenny and I started thinking about where to go next. We haven't really made any decisions, although we think we've 'narrowed it down' to Eastern Europe or South America. But something on TV last week got me thinking about less conventional destinations.

The TV piece was on Greenland, and how it received 30,000 visitors in the past year. Yeah, Greenland! Strange. But what caught my attention was that this report mentioned that direct flights on Air Greenland were available from...Baltimore! Their website isn't that easy to use; no flexible-date option, so it took a bit of trial-and-error before I figured out that there aren't any flights available during the winter months. I was finally able to get some results from a search for July 2008 flights from BWI to their hub in Kangerlussuaq. I'm not sure whether that's the best time to visit Greenland, but it still isn't cheap - 2,790 Denmark Kroner, each way! That works out to about $550 each way, so not too bad considering the lack of competition on the route. But from there, many locations are only accessible via helicopter, so transport costs are bound to be be significant.

How about something a bit closer to home, like the Creation Museum in Kentucky! It takes visitors back in time thousands of years, when dinosaurs and man coexisted. This review contrasts the Creation Museum with the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in D.C.

Finally, what globe-trotting adventurer wouldn't relish the opportunity to take a spin on the Axis of Evil? That's right, North Korea!!! This guy hit the entire Axis, but I'll assume that most people are on a budget and don't enjoy getting shot at or blown up, so North Korea seems like the safest choice. This trip can be a tough ticket if you're an American though, so plan ahead; I actually couldn't find any current travel packages that allowed U.S. citizens. I'll keep looking though - in case Greenland has melted before we make our way there for a visit, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is an excellent fall-back destination. Besides, who wants to go to Kentucky for vacation?!?

UPDATE: After some additional searching, I found a North Korea tours operator that is currently in operation, and that takes U.S. travelers (whether those travelers' Visas get approved is out of the company's control, though).

October Sand

I spent last week on the beaches of the Outer Banks in NC, where the surfing conditions were unseasonably bad (no weather systems to stir things up) but the weather was awesome. My dad and I also tried out some beginner's hang gliding on Jockey's Ridge, which was interesting but also frustrating (it was really too windy for a beginner's lesson). And Marty is a dog who pretty much refuses to get into the water at all - she just laid on the beach for most of the week. I think she still had a good time though.

One piece of unsettling news - the Weeping Radish Brewery and Restaurant has moved from its sound-side location in Manteo to a mainland location along Route 158, in Jarvisburg. Dumb move - please explain the brilliant business plan that advocates relocating to an area the most people simply drive past? I wish them luck, if only because their beer is so tasty and the Eco Farm idea sounds interesting, but I just don't know whether I'll ever visit them at the new location.

Sweet Tail

Here are a few photos from our whale-watching excursion while we were in Boston a few weeks ago. We were up there seeing the sights and visiting Lis and John, who graciously put us up for a few nights and showed us around.

This past weekend was another crazy-busy weekend filled with Matt & Amy wedding stuff. A fun time, but it took us a few days to recover from all the activity and all the people.

And now Mr. Grau is a father. And the apocalypse is not upon us! Weird.

Geekotourism

Here's a brief vacation guide for your inner geek. I would argue that a trip to CERN is easily the geekiest on this list. As for me, it would be a tough choice between the New Zealand LOTR locations and Chernobyl. But if I honestly had to choose between nuclear radiation and Hobbits, I'd probably pick Hobbits nine times out of ten.

Seven Wonders

This Post article marks the first I've heard of this, but there is currently Internet voting for a new Seven Wonders of the World. The 21 eligible wonders are decent, but in this modern age, aren't they missing a few obvious ones, like the Internet itself, or George W. Bush? (a two-term president that's as dumb as he is a modern wonder, in a terrible sort of way).

Seriously though, what about the canals of Venice (too crumbly?), the Vegas Strip (too capitalist?), the Panama Canal (too utilitarian?), or the Sistine Chapel (too arty?). Don't get me wrong, their list is fine, I'm just thinking a few of the choices aren't too stellar. The Statue of Liberty - they chose that to give the US an entry, right? The Alhambra - maybe I'm not cultured enough, but I've barely even heard of it. And the minarets of Timbuktu either look like they've seen better days, or weren't all that fantastic to begin with.

Africa, Part II - The Animals

I've meant to write some additional Africa-related entries well before now, but I think that talking with so many people about it since we've gotten back, I was experiencing a bit of safari-stories overload. I'm better now. I was also inspired by this article about West African chimpanzees making weapons for hunting. Those chimps are so smart, I'm sure their weapons are of an intelligent design.

The strangest thing, by far, of seeing so many exotic animals in their natural environment, is how quickly one takes them for granted. I was struck by how odd it was, that by the third day, an elephant or giraffe sighting was no longer cause for celebration, but just another day in the safari vehicle. An elephant didn't even warrant a photo at that point, unless it was particularly close, particularly young, or was doing something of note (sharpening its tusks, tearing the bark from a tree, etc.). Not to say that they still weren't cool to see, it was just very easy to get used to the presence of these animals. Our first night at a safari camp, there was an elephant wandering around not even 50 feet from our tent. That's just how it was - they were there, you were a visitor in their world, so get used to it or spend the whole trip with your mouth open in astonishment (not good, lots of flies).

We were visitors, yes, but we certainly weren't unnoticed, especially by certain species. Impalas, zebras, many species of gazelle - they couldn't care less that we were there. Elephants too - they don't have much in the way of predators, once you remove 'humans with guns' from the list. Warthogs, hyeenas, cheetahs, baboons, wildebeests; they all were quite aware of our presence, although the reaction ran the gamut from disinterested to curious to wary to terrified, and varied even within species. We encountered hyeenas who were jolted out of their mud baths by our approach, and the next day our Land Cruiser raced a few hundred yards in the middle of the Serengeti alongside a younger hyeena who looked to be just having a good time. Wildebeests scattered en masse whenever our vehicle approached, while some gazelles and baboons, and zebras waited until they were almost roadkill before giving way. We frightened away a timid herd of Eland (Ben, our guide, said that they're all timid), only to be approached by a born-that-day baby Eland, still nearly blind, who mistook our Land Cruiser for a parent and bleated at us pathetically.

Yes, we did see lions, but not up close, and none that were active. It seems as though the typical savannah lion is about as lazy as your common house cat, lounging and sleeping most of the day. We were fortunate enough to watch - from a distance - a female cheetah at the hunt, although she whiffed on a Thompson's Gazelle. Two days later, we saw her up close in the same general area , a few feet from a road, with her three three-month old cubs. We also saw a serval slinking along the road one morning, that was kinda cool.

All said, there was rarely a day where we went very long without seeing something, whether it was one or more of the plentiful gazelle, hippos floating in a pool, warthogs scurrying around somewhat nervously, or one of dozens of species of birds. Still, it certainly wasn't anything like a trip to the zoo; more like a journey to another planet, where we were welcome but still alien visitors.

Africa, Part I - Jet Lag

I don't think I've ever had a serious case of jet lag before now, but I guess that the combination of flying across eight time zones, plus going from mid-nineties temperatures to the teens here at home, took its toll. It's been 3+ days since we've been back, and I still don't feel right. Hopefully the weekend will help with the recovery process.

I'm not going to try to squeeze all my thoughts on our trip to Tanzania into one post, because that post would end up being too damn long. So over the next week or two I'll probably divide it into several shorter entries, one for wildlife, one for people, one for locations & accommodations, maybe one other one also. That should ensure that any remaining readers will be driven from this blog permanently, leaving only my loving parents, and maybe my siblings.

Jenny already has some photos online - elephants mostly - and she's be adding more in the next few days. I have some short (15 second) video clips taken with my Sony still camera (the video camera stopped working on day 2 of our trip) that I'll try to upload to YouTube at some point also.

Africa Bound!

It's a done deal - we recently sent in our deposit and purchased our plane tickets for our two-week Tanzanian safari in early '07. We're certainly excited about it, now once I get the P.E. exam out of the way, I can concentrate on outfitting for this trip. We've already got most of the clothing and other gear covered, but we're probably going to need some additional photographic equipment; extra lenses for digital cameras - for what that's worth, they're nice cameras, but not super-nice digital SLRs - and some kind of way to store digital photos so we don't have to buy dozens of memory cards and sticks. And then, of course, there's the camoflouge.

That's right, every trip can be spiced up with a little bit of ugly-Americanism. I'm planning on passing myself off as an up-and-coming soldier-of-fortune, in Africa for the first time scouting the terrain and getting to know local customs and wildlife. Then, the last half of the trip will be the training portion, where I practice my fighting skills by sneaking up on wildlife and punching and/or kicking them, and then running away.

Why no weapons, you ask? First, I don't have any. Second, try bringing them on a plane these days. But most important, what kind of soldier-of-fortune would I be if I couldn't fight a lion with my bare hands? How would I expect the UN peacekeepers to hire me on for their secret UN asskicking unit that's going to finally restore order in the Sudan? Tanzania and its carnivores will serve as my proving ground for that conflict. Wish me luck!

Western Excursion

This past weekend, Jenny and I were in Florissant, Colorado for a family reunion of her mom's side of the family. Not what I would call a relaxing trip - our bed in the lodge that we stayed as was less than comfortable, plus we were hanging out with seven kids, all under the age of twelve, and most under the age of six, so that can certainly wear one down after a while - but a good time nonetheless, with gorgeous weather most of the time too. I'll have to post or link to the photos from our Sunday hike at a later date (still need to download and sort through the pics).

Amongst the plethora of entertainment options at this place - pool table, ping pong, foosball, air hockey, swimming pool - was something I had never seen before. An outdoor horseshoes-like game, we didn't even know what it was called, but Jenny's cousin Rob had played it before so at least we knew how to play. Turns out it goes by several different names (at least according to this morning's web search) - Monkey Bar Golf, Ladder Golf, and Bolo Ball are three names that I found. Bolo Ball seems to make the most sense, because this game's sole relation to golf is that golf balls are used to construct the bolos; you could easily use another type of ball.

Fire Island NY

We just took a few days off to extend the (otherwise always-too-short) weekend, and drove up to our friend Tammie's family vacation house on the eastern portion of Fire Island, a barrier island just south of Long Island. Well, we didn't really drive all the way out there, because there are no roads to speak of on Fire Island - hell, the "fire department" is a fire hose and pump mounted to the back of one of those golf cart sized John Deere wagons. The weather was kinda blah for most of the stay (we have our theories about that), but still an enjoyable and relaxing trip. Nice beaches, no commerical development at all, and there are even deer running around the island, fully acclimated to people. We had plenty of food at the house, and more importantly, plenty of alcohol, including a Piña Colada concoction that included ice cream and donut holes.

On Monday we drove into Manhattan to have lunch with Ben, Jenny's brother. I've only driven in NYC once before, but that was on a weekend - midday on a weekday is a whole different experience, almost non-stop thrills! We had lunch in Harlem, which isn't too far from Ben's apartment on the Upper West Side, at a cool little soul food place. Then, after less than two hours in the city, we hit the road again. You know, I dig New York a lot and like visiting, but after every trip up there, I still come home thinking that a small big city like Baltimore is still more my speed.

Finally, a London Photo!

Jenny and me, on the London Eye, with Big Ben & Parliament in the background.

Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

OK, enough negativity, back to more uplifting material.

While we were in London, we ducked into a tiny gallery while walking from the London Eye to the rebuilt Globe Theatre - this is all along the south bank of the Thames. This gallery featured a few dozen pieces from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre. Unfortunately, I didn't see many videos on the site, so it's difficult to get a good idea of what it's about. Basically, high-quality woodworking combined with (relatively) simple gear-and-pulley mechanics. Neat stuff.

Oddly enough, part of their exhibit is now in Baltimore, at the American Visionary Art Museum (which Jenny and I have never visited, how sad is that?). Maybe we'll organize an expedition to it sometime in the next few weeks. If anyone's interested, let me know.

Mind The Gap

So intones the stern voice in the Tube stations of the Underground, as a train arrives and opens its doors. We heard this warning many times during our week in London, but it wasn't until we got back that I started thinking of the Gap in a more figurative sense. More on that in a bit.

First up, a list of what we saw and did, or at least what we saw and took note of - it's hard to walk a block or two in London and not see something of deep historical or cultural significance, or at the very least really damn old, so I'm sure we saw things there that we glossed over without much in the way of recognition. But we did manage to see: the Tower of London, British Museum, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace/Gardens, the Museum of London, Pollock's Toy Museum, the London Eye, Globe Theatre, and Harrod's. We spent a lot of time on the Tube, caught opening night of the Chronicles of Narnia at an art-deco cinema in Notting Hill (how very British of us, yes?), saw the enormous mutant ducks and geese of London up close, took a Jack the Ripper walking tour with one of the world experts on the Ripper, went shopping on Oxford Street (and went to the Ben Sherman store!), met up with Ryon and Milena one evening and had a few pints, and went running in Hyde Park (that was just me). We then managed to survive the flight home sitting next to two devil-children and their incompetent parents. Fun trip, but as always, good to be home.

Now, for the Gap(s):

• You're not going to find a more expensive city than London. We knew it was pricey when we planned the trip, but it's hard to believe until you get there. Everything costs more, usually a lot more. Makes Manhattan look like a bargain. Seriously.
• People there are soooo image/fashion conscious. Jenny and I, of course, looked fabulous as always, but our couture often paled in comparison to that of most Londoners. They like their clothes there.
• The sights are swamped with tourists, even in December! Everywhere we went, same thing. To use another NYC comparison, Rockefeller Center around the holidays is just a few people milling about.
• Service, other than from the kind folks behind the bars at pubs (which was almost always polite, if not cheerful), can be described with one word: indifferent. Can't say that was too terribly surprising, though.
• Think the USA is crazy about its sports? Gimme a break. During the oil depot fire that occurred outside of the city while we were there, the on-site anchor cheerfully discussed football scores and news with flames and active explosions in the background. That's dedication to the game! And the newspapers and TV after the World Cup draw was announced? Not much else to talk about but England's group, and how they would fare against Sweden.
• While I imagine that driving in London is probably fun in a manic kind of way, it's a bit scary for pedestrians. Maybe this is the norm in all of Europe these days, but a yellow light to let drivers know that the green is coming? Every intersection becomes a drag strip! Entertaining to watch, just make sure you're not out in front of it.
  

All in all though, a good time was had by both! Now we're back just in time to finish Christmas shopping and getting ready for our New Year's party. Wish us luck.

Now for the standard promise - some pictures from London are forthcoming, I just never remember to bring the memory card to the office with me so that I can add them with the post.

Evite Fatigue

First off, it seems that the colds that Jenny and I have aren't all that bad - it looks like they should be completely gone by the time we head off to London next week.

So many things to do until then, though, one of which is sending out invitations for our (2nd annual) New Year's party. Which means resorting to evite. I'm not a big fan of evite. I can't quite identify the source of this dislike, since evite is actually very functional. If it weren't, it wouldn't be synonymous with online invitations the way that Google is with web searches. Maybe it's the ads. Maybe it's the cute little invitation templates. Maybe it's the fact that I seem to go months without getting a single evite, then get seven in one week - that should make me feel loved and appreciated, but my irrational animosity towards evite takes over instead.

And there aren't really any alternatives. Meetup.com and upcoming.org look like crap (I won't even link to them, that's how crappy they look). Hey geniuses at Google, can we get a googlized version of evite sometime soon?

Until then, I'm stuck with evite. And so are you! If you're reading this, I apologize in advance - an evite is likely coming your way soon. If it's not, it means that (a) I know you won't be in the area around New Year's, (b) I don't know you, or (c) I don't like you. So it's nothing personal, except for (c).

Thanksgiving Germs

Back from Thanksgiving trip to Utah. Jenny and I both have colds, yay! She started feeling bad a few days ago, me - just a bit last night, and woke up this AM with a sore throat. Need to get better before our trip to London, and it would be tough to take any sick days in the week before we're out for another week. Ugh.

I can't imagine why we're sick - plane trip, below freezing the last few days in the SLC area, around lots of kids, Jenny's mom had a cold when we got there, not-exactly-heathly holiday diet. It's a mystery.

More on the trip later, if and when I feel like expounding.

Weekend in Rehoboth

It's been awhile since we spent time at any beach, last July 4th in SC actually. And it's been even longer since we visited the MD/DE beaches in-season; in the past we've usually waited until September or October, and for good reason. It's damn crowded there in August! Tons of families mostly, although plenty of high school kids as well. It's also pricier. The hotel we stayed in was nice, but $200 per night? Welcome to the beaches closest to the Washington-Baltimore megalopolis, I guess.

So we hung out on the beach, ate, drank, got ice cream each of the two nights we were there (24 different flavors of soft serve?!? Not fair). And did a good deal of shopping. Clothes mostly. Factory outlets, whatever than means anymore. I didn't bitch too much, and actually did my share of the purchasing.

Anyway, back at work. Already, I could use another vacation. Funny how that works.

Walking on the Moon

No, not literally. But that is what I felt like I was doing on occasion during our recent trip out to Utah for Jenny's brother's wedding. That feeling stemmed not only from the wedding, which had facets that were unfamiliar in a bizarre way, but also from our subsequent trip to Moab and Arches National Park, a landscape that was unfamiliar in a spectacular, otherworldly way.

Utah is...different than the East Coast, there's no mistaking that. I had been out there three (?) times previously, so I thought I was getting used to the culture. Then we went to this wedding. Foremost, it was a Thursday affair, which is unheard of in the East. I can only assume that the Thursday date was necessary so that Chris and Jen (the newlyweds) could have use of the Salt Lake City temple for the ceremony. It probably saved them a few bucks too, something that I can appreciate since we're still paying off our own wedding that took place last November.

I had never attended a wedding in which I was barred from viewing the actual ceremony, until last week. The Mormons have a closed-door policy for their weddings, evidently. Actually, my understanding is that the closed-door policy is for the temple, but since the wedding takes place within said temple - in nerd-speak, according to the distributive property - it applies to weddings as well. So Catholic heathens like myself waited outside the temple, along with the non-temple-worthy Mormons in attendance, children from Mormon families, and everyone else. That worked out OK; the weather was nice and we played with - and, when necessary, chased down - niece and nephews. The reception was fun, with live band and food, although the absence of a bar or any adult beverages of any kind was striking. I was warned beforehand, but it's still weird to be drinking lemonade (w/o whiskey) at a wedding reception. At least the reception was uneventful, unlike the previous evening's rehearsal dinner. During which the bride's parents both chose to mention that they wished that the bride's previous fiancee (boyfriend?), who was in attendance with his wife, had been the one to join their family. Never mind that Chris is a fabulous guy who's a lot of fun to be around, and that one would be hard-pressed to meet a nicer person, and that he was sitting right next to them hearing this crap! - the parents of the bride should really know better than to be so rude and disrespectful of their daughter and future son-in-law, right?!? I'm not sure I would have believed that it happened, were I not there to hear it myself.

I don't think words can do Arches National Park justice. The hiking was amazing - challenging and beautiful. Sometimes we would stop, not for a rest, but simply to look around for a sec. The weather was pleasant enough too, aside from the wind on the first day. It was what I would imagine the surface of Mars to be like, except with more cacti, shrubbery, and butterflies. Truly an alien landscape, but maybe all too appropriate that it's located in Utah? Don't get me wrong, I like visiting, and Jenny's family is wonderful. But it's still good to be home.

Vegas Moratorium

The Vegas trip for Jarriel's bachelor party; for me, it was a tale of two days, and the two different moods of Lady Luck. On Friday, I bet on 3 basketball games, and won two of those bets, including a bet against the TeamfromDurham. I also played in a $25 buy-in Hold-'Em tournament at the Luxor, lasted an hour, and played reasonably well. Elvis Costello at the Hard Rock that evening was also excellent; his voice sounds fantastic live, and he's a much better guitar player than I had previously thought. On Saturday, I bet on two basketball games and lost both bets, and I was basically eliminated from that same poker tournament by holding pocket Aces and getting beat by 3 Jacks. That evening was spent at the VIP section of a club that, as impressive as the club was, I didn't fully appreciate (maybe that had something to do with the $80/pp??). Still, a good time, mostly thanks to the cool dudes that were in our group (the company you keep on trips like this really makes all the difference).

Does that mean I'm itching to go back again next year? Not Exactly. Maybe it's that I'm getting older, but I prefer my vacations/holidays to be a bit less...frenetic. I like to have time to relax, and I'm reasonably sure after 3 visits that Vegas is not my type of relaxation. While I certainly like to gamble, and can't imagine the scenario where I'd turn down a free cocktail, for me the whole sum of Vegas is best taken in small doses. I figure my next dose won't be necessary for a number of years (at least five, that was my announced moratorium on Sunday). The long flights out and back certainly don't help, either - I bet if I lived out west I'd have a different take on the Vegas 'vacation'. Those were very weary flights home on Sunday morning, but at the end was Jenny (and Maya and Marty), so that made it bearable.

Meanwhile there are thankfully still more than a few plastic-and-neon-free locales on the planet that I've yet to lay eyes on. After returning from a weekend in Las Vegas, that's a comforting thought.